Mignon has had a few revivals in the last decade or so, but not at the Met where it hasn't been performed since 1949. This performance is sung in Italian and reflects most of the cuts and interpolations common at the time. Like many of the other Mexico City broadcasts the sound is uneven, but it's at least listenable and someone has gone to the trouble of pitching it all correctly.Simionato deserves the cheers she gets for her lovely, flexible singing and warm characterization. Neither Di Stefano nor Siepi were yet 30 and their voices are simply heaven. I wasn't able to find out anything about Guajardo either (see Nils-Göran's comments below), but she is a terrific Filina. Her big "Io son Titania" is sung about as well as I ever hope to hear it and she floors us with her huge interpolated high F at the end (she sings another in the offstage reprisal of the aria in the third act). The other parts are well handled too. Picco manages to keep things together fairly well although another rehearsal would've helped.This can't be a first recommendation because of sound and edition issues, but fans of the opera and the singers will enjoy this.

Mignon is a unique case: one of the most-performed operas of all until about 1950, then a rarity. Di Stefano had just taken part in the Met's final series of performances - in French, but he had sung it in Italy also. And you can hear that for the three then-young, later famous stars this was core repertory they probably had not rehearsed much in Mexico City. I found no information on Verdad Guajardo, the Filina, but she is among the best I've heard! She may be helped a bit by my imagination, because the sound is distant and distorted, but at the same time reasonably clear and with stable pitch. The chorus is ragged, the orchestra OK, and the edition fuller than I expected. (No overture is included.) Both Mignon and "Guglielmo" get to sing one extra strophe of their most famous arias as encores.So if you're interested in the singers this may be for you. And also if you're curious about how this opera sounded when it was standard repertory in the Italian-speaking world of opera pre-1950.